The dog came running from the farmyard and danced yammering around him as he neared the house. Carl’s hand tightened on the hilt of his sword—watchdogs often attacked on these lonely places and had to be beaten off with the flat of a weapon. This one, however, simply kept barking till the evening rang with echoes.
“You there, Bull! Quiet!”
A man stepped out of the house and the dog ran to him and was still. The man remained in the door, waiting with a spear in his hand. He was big and burly, with gray hair that reached to his shoulders and a beard that flowed over his homespun shirt. Two boys stood behind him with axes in their hands.
Carl, smiling, reined in his pony. “Greetings,” he said. “I come alone and in peace, asking a roof for the night.”
The farmer lowered his spear and nodded. “Then be welcome and stay with us,” he replied formally. “I am John, son of Tom, and a Dalesman.”
“And I am Carl, son of Ralph in Dalestown,” answered the newcomer. “I thank you for your kindness.”
“Ralph—in Dalestown!” John’s eyes widened. “Then you must be the son of the Chief.”
“Yes, I am,” Carl said, swinging out of the saddle.
They stood for a moment looking at him. Carl was sixteen years old, but large and strong for his age, with ruddy brown hair, and sun-tanned face and wide-set brown eyes. He wore the usual clothes of a traveler: leather breeches, dyed wool shirt, short homespun cloak, and moccasins. Sword and dagger were belted at his waist and a round shield hung from his saddle beside a bow and quiver. He had a canteen of water but no other supplies; in the wilderness there was plenty of game, and where men lived, a farmer would always give him food and lodging for the sake of company and news.
“Come,” one of the boys said eagerly. “I’ll show you to the barn and then we’ll eat and talk.”
He was the elder of John’s two sons, a lean, red-haired, freckle-faced lad of about Carl’s age.
His brother, who followed them, was perhaps a year younger, short and stout and blond. “I am Tom,” said the older boy, “and this is Owl.”
“Owl?” asked Carl.
“His real name is Jim,” said Tom, “but nobody ever calls him anything but Owl. He looks like one, doesn’t he?”
“It is because I am so wise,” smiled his brother.
The farm buildings were long and low, made from rough-hewn timbers chinked with clay and moss. Within the barn there were several horses and cows, and a twilight thick with the rich smell of animals and hay. Tom led Carl’s pony to a vacant stall while Owl brought water.
“You have a big place here,” said Carl. “I wouldn’t have thought it. You live right on the edge of the great forest and the border of the Dales.”
“Why shouldn’t we have a good farm?” asked Tom.
“Well—a place like this would tempt raiders, I should think.”
“There are none,” said Owl. “The woods-runners around here were driven away a hundred years ago. You should know that.”
“I do,” answered Carl gravely. “But there are worse than woods-runners—and they’re on their way.”
“You mean the Lann.” Tom’s voice grew flat. “We can speak of them later.”
Carl shrugged, but there was a sudden bleakness in him. It had been this way all the time, everywhere he went. So few would believe the story, so few could rise above the narrowness of their lives and see that the Dales faced a threat beyond their worst dreams.
He clamped his mouth shut and helped care for the pony. When the three boys came out, the sun had set and twilight stole from the east, rising like mist between the high trees. They walked across the muddy yard toward the cheerful fire-glow of the house.
The long room inside was bounded by curtained beds at one end and a stone hearth at the other. John’s wife, a tall woman in the long-skirted dress of the Dales, was cooking supper there. She smiled at Carl and greeted him in a friendly way, but he saw the worry in her face and knew that she was not altogether deaf to the stories of the Lann. Besides John, who sat at the plank-table smoking a corncob pipe, there were two young men who were introduced to Carl as Am and Samwell, workers on the farm.
It was a handsome and comfortable house, thought Carl, letting his eyes travel around it. The soft light of home-dipped tallow candles fell on skin rugs, on a loom with a rich, half-woven tapestry stretched across it, on pots and bowls of baked clay and hammered copper. It slanted over weapons racked against one wall and the weapons threw back the light in a fierce iron blink, deflecting it off a faded picture of a man, one of the marvelous works which must have been handed down since the Day of Doom. And all this could go up in flame when the Lann arrived!
The Dalesmen did not think it polite to talk of serious matters before a guest had been fed, so they spoke of weather and animals and neighborhood gossip.
Unreal, thought Carl, swallowing his impatience. They sat and gabbled about rain and crops when the storm of conquest even then roared down from the north. The food, when at last it was served, was tasteless in his mouth.
After the dishes had been cleared off and the fire built up against the cool dampness of early summer night, John gave him a shrewd glance across the table. A wavering red light danced through the room, weaving a pattern of huge rippling shadows in the corners from which Arn looked superstitiously away. The fanner’s eyes gleamed out of a face that was half in darkness, and he puffed a blue cloud of smoke into the air.
“And how are things in Dalestown, Carl?” he asked.
This was the time to speak! “The men are gathering,” answered Carl, choosing his words slowly, with care. “In the east and west and south the Dalesmen have heard the war-word of their Chief and are sending their fighting men to join him. Dalestown has grown noisy with men and weapons. Only from this part of our northern lands have no men yet come.” He raised his eyebrows. “You will march soon, of course?”
“We will not march at all,” said John calmly. “The men of the northern Dales are staying at home.”
“But—” Carl checked his words. After all, this was no surprise; Ralph’s messengers had brought back the answer of these landholders already. Finally he said slowly, “But you are in the very path of the invaders.”
“Perhaps,” replied John. “And in that case, should we abandon our homes to their plundering, leave our women and children and animals unshielded while all our warriors are at Dalestown?”
“My father,” said Carl desperately, “is gathering all the men of the tribe together so he can have an army of proper size with which to meet these Lann and drive them back where they came from. Do you few border dwellers expect to stop the enemy alone?”
“We stood off the woods-runners long ago,” said John. “I don’t think the Lann will be any worse.”
“But they are!” cried the boy. “We know!”
John raised his brows. “And what do you know of the Lann? I thought there was no traffic northward.”
“Very little,” said Carl. “We get what we need for ourselves in the Dales, and our traders carry what extra we have south to get fruits and tobacco or east for fish and salt. Still, travelers have gone into the cold lands from time to time, and they have told us that the tribes living there are poor and backward, but very fierce. Someone brought word back a couple of years ago that these tribes had united under one Chief and were talking of coming south.”
“Why should they do that?” asked Tom. “It’s a long way from their homes to ours.”